Rice to Riches

I haven't posted in a few days. The small things that I wanted to write about were put aside because of the bigger issues that have been consuming my thoughts for the last week. Most have been more personal and I don't want to get into them on here. I guess I'll see how the next few weeks play out and whether or not I want to write about it.

Last week, Nina and I decided that a girl's night was definitely in dire need. We had both had busy weeks and needed to relax. After I got off of work on Wednesday, I met Nina in soho. We walked a few blocks and decided to eat at a dimly lit pizza restaurant in little Italy. The vibe was wonderful; really great indie music mixed with fashionable New Yorkers, great lighting and the best thin-crust metropolitan pizza I've had since I've lived in the city. We talked about life and the little things that had been happening to us since we had seen eachother last. After finishing our gigantic pizza, we walked down the rainy streets over to a place called Rice to Riches. It is very well-branded store devoted entirely to rice pudding! They embrace the idea that it is terribly fattening for you, however, you mine as well enjoy yourself anyway! They had a ridiculous amount of flavors that you could top with cinnamon, nuts, fruit or chocolate chips. Nina and I decided to share a small graham cracker flavored pudding (which was GIGANTIC!)that had berries on top. Good god...it was delicious! I sat there thinking that, in essence, this is a restaurant entirely devoted to a product that people could absolutely care less about and any sane person would run as fast as they could away from rice pudding due to its fat content. Because it is branded SO well, however, rice pudding is now the coolest thing since Lindsay Lohan! This teeny restaurant was so busy with everyone from tall lanky models to business men and tourists who could barely speak english. The women who worked there seemed to be of European descent because of their thick accents however the design of the store felt very influenced by the clean and simple design of the asian-culture that has been developing restaurants like pink berry. I took a couple of pictures.





Yesterday, I woke up pretty late in the afternoon because I had trouble sleeping the night before. I met my friend Liz who is an apartment broker in Williamsburg to look at an apartment for Kate and I. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind, so we left and grabbed a cup of coffee. She lives in the same building as my friend Chris, so on the way back I called him up and decided to hang out as his place for a bit. It's funny being in an apartment full of very vocal guys. It's such a different dynamic than living with girls. The three of them are constantly joking around, laughing, walking around without clothes on....it's pretty hilarious. We waited for Chris' roommates, Chris and Eric, to get ready and the four of us took the L train to the East Village to eat brunch at a little vegan restaurant that Chris #2 was really excited about. I ordered this delicious frittata that had olives and goat cheese inside of it with a side of really tasty home fries. Spending time with a group of guys made me realize that boys obsess over girls just as much (maybe more?) as girls obsess about guys. I think the preconception is that, as women, we are always nervous to be the ones to make the first move, be too expressive with our feelings at first, wait for THEM to make all of the decisions, etc. because we don't want to make them feel uncomfortable in any way. I, myself, never want to come off as too needy or dependent on someone so I tend to back off and let the guys do most of the work at first. I don't want them to get the wrong idea about me. But is that really the right approach? I think that the genders have become so uncommunicative with one another over time that we have developed all of these preconceptions that aren't really based on anything concrete! After hanging out with the guys yesterday, I realized that they worry about the same things girls worry about and if we all just vocalized it in the beginning stages of dating...life would be so much easier. At some point while we were eating, Chris was like "do you know what this is right now?" We all looked at him, "It's Seinfeld! We're the guys and she's Elaine!" It was really funny, but very true. I was the voice of the player from the other team. It was a good brunch.

So today has been really lazy so far. I slept in, cleaned my room up and have been sleeping on and off. I just need a day to relax after everything that's been happening in the last week. It's really amazing how huge of a toll external stress can take on your body and mental state. It is always a very gradual but slow buildup until BAM one day I just can't stop crying and feel awful. Luckily, I have such supportive a family. Without them knowing how I function and knowing how to calm me down and make me laugh, I'd have runny mascara on an hourly basis!